A drink fit for the Gods

Advantages: Light, easy to drink, delicious flavour
Disadvantages: Can be hard to find in shops

...Walking into an off licence these days we are faced with what is often a bewildering array of new drinks all designed to make more pleasurable the ingestion of that old drug, and poison, alcohol. Every year there seems to be an increase in our choice with all manner of outlandish cream or fruit flavoured liqueurs becoming available and wines from countries of which few of us have heard. Sometimes though, if you are lucky, you may chance upon an ancient drink which has been quenching thirst and invigorating soul for many hundreds of years, a drink which has been around for possibly as long as wine and beer. ☼☼☼What is Mead? ☼☼☼ Simply put, mead is just a type of white wine. However, whereas most wine is made from grapes or other fruits, mead is made from honey. The high sugar content of honey...

cladach29 04.12.2006 · Read review
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Review of Lindisfarne Mead

When Benny met Geoffrey

Advantages: Quirky, wordy, brainy, zany
Disadvantages: Christopher Biggins

...Eagle-eyed TV viewers may have spotted a recent three-part series about Scotland that sneaked out on BBC4. Although, hidden away at bedtime as it was, they could have been forgiven for missing it. Called Off-Kilter, it was the latest quirky outing by one Jonathan Meades. If it had been fronted by Griff Rhys Jones or Michael Palin, it would have been endlessly trailed, given a feature in Radio Times and a prime-time slot on BBC2. As it is, the BBC seems mildly ashamed of a programme-maker who, almost uniquely today, fulfils in each programme the complete mission of its founder Lord Reith - to educate, inform and to entertain. Still, we should be glad that Meades is allowed to make programmes at all. If most current TV is dumbed-down, Meades is the opposite - smartened up, maybe? Dressed in his trademark dark suit and tie, as in all...

Silverback 25.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Jonathan Meades Collection (Box Set) (DVD)

Black Metal Crusaders.....

Advantages: original, well-executed, musically diverse and hugely enjoable!
Disadvantages: vocals arent very accomplished ( though they still fit somehow)

...Crusader-themed black metal played by a bunch of English blokes that like to pose on their album covers stood in front of ruined castles dressed up in medieval armour and waving swords around... sounds well and truly cringeworthy doesn't it? Fortunately, The Meads of Asphodel are a hugely talented and entertaining band with a strong sense of humour, and their second full length, "Exhuming the Grave of Yeshua" is a pleasure to listen to from start to finish. In keeping with the band's image, "Exhuming..." deals with the outbreak of psychological and ideological epidemy that was the crusades, and the brutal violence they involved, as well as the insanity of religious war in general. It highlights the xenophobic and fanaticial perspective of Christian Europe at the time, whilst simultaneusly decrying religious war in general, thus...

Burning_Darkness 25.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Exhuming The Grave Of Yeshua - Meads Of Asphodel

Old McDonald had a farm...and we were all invited!

Advantages: Practically Everything!
Disadvantages: Costly as most farms are (though annual discounts offered)

...Old McDonald had a farm...Perhaps not one like this though! As a mum of a toddler I was always on the lookout for new and exciting places to take her. We had been to other farms before and she loved the animals so when my own mum, who still had youngsters, my brother and sister who are 7 and 5 years of age, invited us to Leighton Buzzard to Mead Open Farm, we jumped at the chance. Armed with picnic lunches for the children, which had grown in number, we took the easy route to the farm and prepared for a great day out. Mead Open Farm is located in Billington, near Leighton Buzzard. It is clearly signposted with those well known brown signposts from both the A505 and the A4146. On arriving, I was glad to see a large area for parking (being terrible at parking!) right next to the farm entrance so no need to walk any distance at all...

elfbwillow 13.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Mead open Farm (Lieghton Buzzard)

Exchanging Chances

Advantages: Thought-provoking.
Disadvantages: none

...a much more honest person, who carries a weight of guilt around him, that makes him feel unworthy of being loved. Madeline has also to realise that she is living with only half of her heart, much had died with her son. As the attraction between her and Flynn develops, what will happen to both of them? ? What is the guilt that both carry within them? Can there be any happy ending? This, faithful readers is for you to find out. Summary This is not just a thought-provoking story, many of the chapters which deal with the atrocities of war and the genocide of nations, are real and alive with the journalists who risk their lives to report on these topics. Juilette Mead has done a lot of research into the backgrounds of war correspondents. The novel is an insight into what motivates these brave people; it is not for the money...

Elffriend 18.06.2004 · Read review
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Review of Healing Flynn - Juliette Mead

LX200 12" GPS

Advantages: GOTO makes faint fuzzies easy, more time for observing.
Disadvantages: Heavy, just carryable by one if you are strongish.

...The Meade 12" LX200GPS with UHTC (£3999) is a big beast of a scope. It is a Schmidt Cassegrain telescope, which basically means it has a conveniently short tube, about 20" for the 12" (the 12" is the diameter of the tube) model. At the bottom end of the tube is a concave primary mirror with a hole, about 2" in its centre, this mirror recieves light through the top end and reflects it back to a secondary flat mirror which is held in place in the middle of a clear corrector plate at the top end of the scope tube. From this secondary mirror the light is reflected back towards the hole in the main mirror. It passes through this hole to the eyepiece. It is a GOTO telescope with an inbuilt computer system and hand held contol pad which allows the user to push a few keys telling the scope what you want to see, eg jupiter, saturn, a galaxy...

nikauuk 04.07.2003 (31.07.2003) · Read review
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Review of Meade LX200

Sun, Sea And The Sands Of Sakkara.

Advantages: A superb intriguing plot, a gripping and interesting writing style and well constructed characters.
Disadvantages: Takes priority over food, drink, breathing and other non-essentials.

...So, finally, the time arrives for me to review the first of my holiday books, now that I have recovered and the holiday has become romanticised as part of the distant past. And for the matter I didn’t see the sea at all during my drive/camping family holiday in Germany, Austria and France (we utilised the Channel Tunnel), but the sun played a major part and The Sand s Of Sakkara did to, for it was a most enjoyable read (I get the feeling I wasn’t meant to say that till the end of the opinion). So what were “The Sands Of Sakkara” doing in the middle of Europe? Well, as it pretty obvious really it’s a book (it says so at the top of the page!) by Glenn Meade, an author I had never heard of previously, and neither, apparently, had ciao. Anyway she (at least I think it’s a she although if anybody knows...

timmyotoole 16.09.2001 · Read review
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Review of The Sands Of Sakkara - Glenn Meade

Down on the farm with Mary

Advantages: excellent trip for familys or schools
Disadvantages: ?

...It’s a bright sunny day would you like to come with my family and me to Mead open farm/? Mead farm is an open farm at Stanbridge, Leighton Buzzard, and Bedfordshire. www.meadopenfarm.freeserve.co.uk. This farm is a farm with traditional farm animals it is about ½ hr from my home so get in the car we are going to meet my daughter and grandson there. We have arrived and parked our car. We enter into the ticket office it cost us £4.50 for an adult £5.0 for a child if we had senior citizens that would cost £4.00 if we wanted to buy an annual ticket it would cost £26 for adult £22 for a child £24 for the old one. I f I lived in Leighton Buzzard I might be interested in that. We walked past the shop selling toy animals, books and trinkets standard type of things you get in zoo’s / farm’s. There was a tearoom...

mumsymary 21.06.2004 (22.06.2004) · Read review
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Review of Mead open Farm (Lieghton Buzzard)

Positive

Advantages: No fogging
Disadvantages: Only fits limited range of cameras

...What a great idea. And long overdue, too. If you own an F5, 100, 801, 90 - you can replace the standard eyepiece with this little gadget. In wet or cold weather, standing behind the camera , breathing (as you do), the eyepiece doesn't fog up. Simple as that. Not really all that expensive, either, at £18. Piece of cake to install. Just screw off the original eyepiece, and screw this on. You need a soft cloth to clean it, just like the standard one. Damned clever, these Japanese. My only complaint is that it was a bit difficult to track down, until I came across a little mail order outlet in Brighton. They had them in stock, and knew all about them. Used my Switch card, and got it in my hand the next day....

Nikonian 19.10.2000 · Read review
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Review of Nikon - Anti-fog Eyepiece

Great telescope for serious amateurs

Advantages: Easy to use and good for beginners
Disadvantages: Quite expensive for a decent size

...I've been trained on a 10" LX200 Meade as part of my astrophysics course. It's easy to use and simple to start finding your way around the sky. It's quick to set up after the intitial input of data such as your latitude and longtitude etc. It can be set up with an adapted mechanical camera or with a CCD for the serious amateur. It's a fairly robust telescope and fully motorised. This means you can put in a star's coordinates and hit 'goto' and it will locate the star. It comes with a catalogue containing the coordiantes of many stars, planets and deep sky objects. You simply enter a code for the object and the telescope will locate it. This makes for quick and easy viewing but can take out some of the fun of optical astronomy. It has good resolution, optics and a variety of accessories that come with it, although these are...

rach150384 22.11.2002 · Read review
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Review of Meade LX200